If a Top card cannot run future games with top settings then neither an entry-level card can run todays games with top Settings.
a top-end card can run future games with medium-high settings, but a crappy card cannot cut it even in lowest settings...
Saying an HD6990 won't play games in the next 10 years is different than saying an HD5670 won't play games in the next 2 years.
I think the difference is obvious between the two choices..

You'd need to spend like at least $150 to get any decent gaming on both PC and pcsx2 emulator. But it also depend on what resolution you're playing at, which is a deal breaker. I'll wait until there's a single card that has twice the performance of the 6950 before I make my next purchase =)

I have a 5670 in my secondary PC... I know for 100% fact that it can play PCSX2 fine with 2x scaling in most games, and some 3x.

I also know the 5670 can play most PC games medium-high. Including DiRT 2 (which is a DX11 game, can play it on max settings at a constant 20-30fps at 1080p). Obviously, more expensive tends to be better... but as has been mentioned before newer cards seem to focus almost entirely on shader count/processing... if you can stand playing your games on lower shader model/setting you can leave almost all of your other settings high even on more low end cards.

That said, once you exceed mid-range video cards... performance doesn't scale with price. It gets worse and worse the higher end the card.

(edit) I have a pretty good set of graphic cards to compare with. My old main PC graphics were a 3850, my secondary currently has a 5670, my main has a 5770, my secondary laptop has a 4250, and this laptop has a Nvidia 540.

If you go for an HD 5670 make sure it's the GDDR5 version, DDR3 is going to be painfully slow...

Offtopic: I hate how almost all sub $100 cards nowadays keep about the same performance as the good old 9600GT even after 3 years...

(04-18-2011 12:38 AM)tuanming Wrote:  You'd need to spend like at least $150 to get any decent gaming on both PC and pcsx2 emulator.

I could not disagree more. $150 is about where what's really needed for PCSX2 stops. Even at high resolution, but I guess I'm assuming nobody's planning on going higher than 1080p (3x-4x scaling)...

(04-18-2011 01:10 AM)Koji Wrote:  I have a 5670 in my secondary PC... I know for 100% fact that it can play PCSX2 fine with 2x scaling in most games, and some 3x.

Now that sounds right (as with all of your post). I'd say just about the same for a GT 430. Even with "heavier" PS2 games, and modern PC games on med-high settings. This is also a big reason I disagreed with the previous statement, because that GT 430 was only $60...

(04-18-2011 02:22 AM)Shadow Lady Wrote:  If you go for an HD 5670 make sure it's the GDDR5 version, DDR3 is going to be painfully slow...

DDR3 itself isn't always necessarily too slow. That GT 430 is a DDR3, and wasn't painfully slow. But I would totally agree that a GDDR5 version would be considerably better than a respective DDR3 version, and probably not much higher in cost (worth it).

(04-18-2011 03:22 AM)Rezard Wrote:  DDR3 itself isn't always necessarily too slow. That GT 430 is a DDR3, and wasn't painfully slow. But I would totally agree that a GDDR5 version would be considerably better than a respective DDR3 version, and probably not much higher in cost (worth it).

GT 430 will be painfully slow if you plan on using anything other than native for most games... just try the Harsh GPU benchmark in the BIOS, I doubt it'll give anything higher than 20FPS or even 100% at the mild test while others would give 200% speed at the mild one and the BIOS test isn't exactly one of the GPU hungry kind of scenes...

And you're right DDR3 isnt always slow but it will be much much slower than GDDR5 at same clock and bus width, it's almost twice as slow and we know that PCSX2 loves the memory bandwidth which a GDDR3 HD5670 will just be hurting unnecessarily against the GDDR5 counterpart.

the problem with cards that can use either GDDR5 or 3, is that the GDDR5 will at times be placed on a lesser system bus and perform not much better than the GDDR3.

VBA-M

(04-18-2011 04:14 AM)Shadow Lady Wrote:  GT 430 will be painfully slow if you plan on using anything other than native for most games... just try the Harsh GPU benchmark in the BIOS, I doubt it'll give anything higher than 20FPS or even 100% at the mild test while others would give 200% speed at the mild one and the BIOS test isn't exactly one of the GPU hungry kind of scenes...

Actually, I found it have nearly the same capabilities as Koji's 5670. Most games played at about 2x scaling, and some games ran fine on higher. Just saying, it's no louse.

And I did benchmark it. I gotta say, you're pretty accurate with what you think it'd bench like, but the gameplay results aren't that bad.

(04-16-2011 07:39 PM)Rezard Wrote:  BTW - This PSU gets my "On a Budget" award. It exceeds the requirements for a GTX 460, which is right around the top of my budget range for a single part, anyway (~$200). It may not be one of those highly reputable brands, but I can tell you these PSUs have stood the test of time in my experience. Just thought I'd share that.

I'd trust a 300W SeaSonic before I'd trust that ePOWER 500W PSU. I reckon that ePOWER is no better than cheap power supplies that come included with cases. There's a reason a lot of people use cheap power supplies - more often than not, you won't be putting anywhere close to the advertised wattage on it and it'll work just fine. Just because it still works fine for you doesn't mean it's of good quality. Another thing, it's not just whether a PSU can deliver its rated wattage. Does it deliver clean power? How is the noise and ripple on that thing?

(04-18-2011 06:30 AM)Rezard Wrote:  Actually, I found it have nearly the same capabilities as Koji's 5670. Most games played at about 2x scaling, and some games ran fine on higher. Just saying, it's no louse.

Just looking at the specifications, the GT 430 (28.8GB/s) has around half the performance of the HD 5670 GDDR5 (64GB/s) in PCSX2. Indeed, benchmark results support this theory.

Mild
93.84 FPS　- ATI Radeon HD 5670 - ilovejedd
55.75 FPS　- NVIDIA GT 430 (Stock 700/800) - Rezard

Harsh
29.82 FPS - ATI Radeon HD 5670 - ilovejedd
14.88 FPS - NVIDIA GT 430 (Stock 700/800) - Rezard

I do also have a GT 430. Iirc, it does 2x or higher in the games I play (basically FF titles). The HD 5670 has no problem handling higher scaling in the same games.

@tsunderetaiga
I'm not sure what pricing is like in your area but if you live in the US, $100 for the HD 5670 is kinda expensive. I got mine a while back from Amazon for $75 with free shipping and no tax. Like Shadow Lady mentioned, though, you want to go with GDDR5 memory. HD 5670 with GDDR3 would perform just the same as the GT 430. Between 512MB GDDR5 and 1MB GDDR3, you definitely want to go with 512MB GDDR5. As for your PSU being enough, yeah, it should be. The HD 5670 uses less than 75W even at full load and the rest of the parts in your build look to be pretty low power. While I wouldn't exactly trust it with 390W of actual load, I doubt your build would be pulling even close to 200W.

Actually, it kicks the snot out of any PSU I've seen that comes with a case (hands down). It's not just me that is has worked for, and I never said it was of particular "good quality". It's not loud, but I can't say I've tested for ripple. Hell, it's not like you should expect so much for $25, except a PSU that can do the job and will get you by. It's not like it's a wonderful PSU that'll carry over to your next build or something. Gee, dude, you seem to be going to some great lengths to try and discredit a cheap PSU as not being something "ideal". If you missed it, I've already agreed with that...

Yeah, that's interesting how the benchmarks show such a great diffrence, yet the "real" results (gaming) seem relatively similar (hard to be accurate there, of course). It's as if the PCSX2 bench scene is all about FP MAD and FP MUL... lol. No, the bandwidth truely shows there. If comparing an HD 5670 with matching DDR3 (approx 25GB/s), you could expect possibly less performance than a GT 430 DDR3. The more appropriate comparison to a GDDR5 5670 would be nVidia's GDDR5 GT 440. Still under $100, yet with 1GB versions available (example).